


Carry That Weight (Julia Remix)

by r_lee



Category: Cowboy Bebop
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 06:25:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_lee/pseuds/r_lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>leave all your love and your longing behind/you can't carry it with you if you want to survive</i> - Florence and the Machine, <i>Dog Days are Over</i></p>
<p>Written for the off-season fanfic exchange <a href="http://ineedmyfics.livejournal.com">I Need My Fics</a> on LJ/DW.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carry That Weight (Julia Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anythingbutblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingbutblue/gifts).



If there's one thing she's learned to do and do well, it's how to take a circuitous route. Julia knows all the dark twisting alleyways of Tharsis as well as she did the day she had to disappear. In the back of her mind she hoped Spike would understand, but in the bottom of her heart she knew he wouldn't. Breaking his heart was never on her personal agenda, even if it was the inevitable elephant in the room. As cool and calculating as Vicious taught her to be, she was still unprepared—if only privately—for how much regret she felt as she watched Mars drop away out of sight the day she fled. For how much leaving _hurt._

*

Her comm rings, but she ignores it. Few people have her number, and she picks up for only one or two of them. She almost trusted Gren with it, but over the years she's learned that giving anyone access to her whereabouts means giving Vicious access, and that's not something she's going to do. It's also tantamount to signing their death warrant. Out of everyone she met on her travels since Mars (and she's never stayed in any one place for very long), she misses Gren the most. But his ties to Vicious were too tangible and his feelings still too poignant. It was a risk she just couldn't take. Over the years Blue Crow has never fallen off her personal radar, but it's been like watching a scene unfold through the fog. She always wishes the view came with just a little more clarity.

On last report half a year ago Gren was alive and well, living his solitary life, still playing his saxophone. She misses him almost as much as she misses Spike, but regrets are the province of a different kind of girl. The kind who hosts lavish parties, stays put for years at a time, has the luxury to cheat on her boyfriend. Julia is no longer that type and never really was but for once in her life. She was young and determined, ambitious and foolish. Vicious was everything she thought she wanted, including that guaranteed climb up the corporate ladder. Social acceptance. A career worth chasing. They were wined and dined. They worked together, albeit separately. She was good at her job, accepted without question. The only thing about the whole setup she never understood was the tall lanky fuzzy-haired slacker in the corner, the one who smoked all the time and didn't give a shit about anyone or anything, but was every bit as deadly with his hands as he was with his gun. He was as much a puzzle as he was Vicious's partner. To know Vicious better, she knew she needed to understand his best friend. The one thing she never anticipated was falling in love with Spike.

*

Julia knows a setup when she sees one. She did long before she signed on with the Dragons. When Vicious took the Titan assignment, she smelled a rat but questioning it wasn't her place. The conversation she and Vicious had the night before he left for that sandy windswept planet is one she's not likely to forget. Her almost-plaintive _why,_ escaping in a moment of passion, betrayed her normal cool and steady persona. The only time that was difficult to maintain was when she and Vicious were in bed together, his arms like sculpted steel embracing her, their bodies joined together a delicious thrill that caught her off guard every time. His answer came with no explanation: _Spike will be here to look after you._ It felt like a test, but in that same moment of passion she didn't question it. She just let the words go, subsumed by her body's desire for more, more, more.

There were as many reasons to love Vicious as there were to fear and respect him. All those reasons still live deep inside her somewhere, but she's buried them away. She's had to, so she could stay sane and reasonable and functional. So she could move like a snake in the dark, go from place to place unseen, without leaving tracks or a trace. So Vicious could never find her. So _Spike_ could never find her.

But she knows where he is. This time when her comm rings, she looks at the incoming caller and smiles. If the Dragons taught her one lesson, it's to follow the most obvious but least expected route and to set up this chain, she had to dig far into the past. Find someone hidden in plain sight, as it were. Someone far away, but with good contacts in place, four or five or six hops away from scrutiny. She presses the TALK button.

"You're looking good." From across the void of space, she sees a thatch of white hair and crazy eyebrows and a look of utter contempt for mankind. She's always been a fool for people who wore their disdain like that.

The man on the other end raises an eyebrow, barks out a harsh laugh. "You think so? Shows how bad your eyes are." There's an underlying fondness to his words that she feels across the miles. The first time she met him, she was on assignment. Since she was the Dragons' Earth girl, they sent her back to the surface to bring him a gift from Mao. She never knew what it was, not until she got there and Doohan, being no fool, made her open the package. That was always risky, but she wore the fact that Mao liked her as her own bravado-laced bulletproof vest. When she opened the box, it turned out to be one of those old analog radios from a century ago, in perfect working order, along with a thank-you card signed YEN-RAI, MAO in gilded script.

Seeing the radio put a smile on Doohan's face, and their mutual admiration for one another began in that moment. His voice on the other end of her comm brings her right back to the immediate present.

"You'll never guess who was just here."

With the comm cradled to her ear, Julia smiles. She knows Doohan's getting a close-up of her hair, but it's just for a moment. She usually only needs one or two of those a couple times a year, and they pass quickly. Sentimentality is not something she can afford. "Is he all right?"

"As impatient and headstrong as ever. Still the best damn pilot I ever trained."

They mention no names, no particulars, no identifying information. It's a safety precaution, and both of them want to stay alive as long as they possibly can.

"That sounds about right." She allows herself just the one moment of wistfulness, then looks Doohan in the eye across time and space, a perfectly composed smile on her lips. "He's all right, then."

"Can't say no, although I wish he wasn't so damn reckless. Yeah, he's fine. Figured you'd want to know."

She nods, just a little and just enough, and is about to give thanks when the connection's cut short with a _damn weather reporters, they could've mentioned rock showers._ Julia laughs, tucks her comm away. Maybe she'll go to Earth next and visit Doohan, if it's safe enough. That way she'll be able to get the full story in person. She can stand where Spike stood, retrace his footsteps. It's the closest she's likely to ever get to him, but it will be good enough.


End file.
